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Happily married mommy of 1 with no plans for any additions. Loving every crazy, scary, fun, hilarious, frustrating, amazing minute of parenthood and life in general. I live in Portland, OR and have a great job that I would very much like to keep.

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cartoon

This is me throwing my hands in the air and stepping away, folks. This is me saying “Listen here Children’s Programming, I CAN’T! I just CAN’T ANYMORE!!!”

We have been suffering from a serious plague in our home. A plague brought on by Amazon’s original program, Creative Galaxy. Sit parents, and I will tell you a tale…a tale of WOE. (My woe but so what, I’m feeling melodramatic, let’s go with this…)

I’ve posted about children’s programming in the past (for example here and here) and it’s no secret that my first love will never be Curious George (for real, the monkey is the smartest human on the show..and he’s not a human) and a lot of children’s programming is unbelievably disturbing – albeit charming (I’m looking at you claymation Christmas movies). But it is only recently that our family has been as effected by a children’s show (and we’ve been through the 4th ring of hell known as the Disney Channel…*shudder”). And the show plaguing us is called…Creative Galaxy.

Creative Galaxy is all about art. The characters are brightly colored aliens living on some unknown planet in the “creative galaxy” which features other planets like Sculpteron and Paper Planet. Arty, the main character who I’m going to assume is a little boy alien, and his pet, Epiphany (no clue what that thing is) basically solve every problem that comes along with ART. (Sarcastic Yay!) Baby Georgia is crying? Make a stuffed Epiphany on the fabric planet (can’t remember the name of that one). Your dinner table is boring?! For shame! Make table decorations (that incidentally cover the ENTIRE table) on paper planet! (You genius, you!) Neighbor’s dog eats the ridiculously elaborate game your dad created for family game night? That’s right! Head to Sculpteron for the solution. Basically, you can fix ANYTHING with art (at least according to Arty).

I’d like to take a moment and tell you some things you CANNOT fix with art:

A clogged toilet

Dinner (although they make a serious go of it with the “Food is Art” episode – that’s resulted in some very interesting arguments at dinner time)

The walls (in spite of the library episode where Arty paints on the walls – thanks for that one)

The garbage disposal

Being late for literally everything

The dog (Pineapple is the MASTER at this…has been for years, so can’t really blame CG for that one)

My car

Her new clothes

The couch

You get the idea…

So what prompted this post other than the above list? Well, this morning before Pineapple went downstairs with DH to eat her breakfast, I told her “you can draw/color/cut paper/glue but NO painting before school – you might get paint on your new shirt and we don’t have time to change.” She confirmed that she’d both heard and understood what I said and promising not to paint, skipped downstairs saying “Woohoo! Breakfast! Yay! Good morning doggy!”

Happy girl / happy mommy.

So, I finish getting ready for work (can’t find my sweater – seriously, where did it go?! It’s not animated…how could it leave the house…which is clearly what happened because it is GONE) and I head downstairs. And guess what is happening at Pineapple’s little art/breakfast table in the living room. Go ahead…guess. You’ll NEVER guess.

PAINTING!!! YAAAAAY!!!! And it’s everywhere. It’s on her new sparkly donut shirt, it’s in her hair, it’s on the wall, it’s on the table. It’s EVERYWHERE. So instead of singing the CG jingle while smiling and happily wiping down my child with an “oh you silly thing” look on my face, I freaked the freak out.

Yep. Time out immediately, frantically wiping down the wall, her table, running upstairs to find another shirt for her to wear, and then making her morning protein shake and mine, while prepping a roast for dinner. FUMING MAD. Frustrated. And committed to throwing the dadgum CG-displaying TV out the back door and never looking back. So, when I walked over and excused her from time out and took her in the bathroom to attempt to wash all the paint off of her hands and out of her hair, and I knelt down to look at her and said “I asked you not to paint before school. You said you wouldn’t. But you did. Is that what you’re supposed to do?” And she responded “I’m so sowwy…you porgive me?” I just hugged her and told her of course I did. And I asked her why she did it…and she said “because Arty was painting and I wanted to paint, too.”

*%*&^%%$& Creative Galaxy!!!!!!! *shakes fist at sky*

Now, all of this being said (and the bitching out of the way), I will say there are some great things about this show….here’s a list:

Pineapple has ADHD and is often “in trouble” and she makes “mistakes in her schoolwork” (a lot of them and she tells me this so she’s aware) but “THERE ARE NO MISTAKES IN ART.” Let that soak in for a sec. Imagine you are a 6 year-old little girl who has worn the time out step’s carpet down to the wood and frequently hear “that’s a great 3 but it’s backwards” and other similar feedback on your work. And then someone tells you that if you just create some art, you CAN’T make a mistake…because it’s your art. And if you love it, then it’s perfect. That’s a pretty powerful thing for that little girl…a beautiful, powerful thing.

My kid knows what Dada art is. Not only that, but she can tell you that they made sculptures and they used dice to decide what to sculpt. She’s also a huge fan – and recreation master – of pointillism art. Pretty neat, huh?

We are enjoying a lot of really interesting art in our home.

And she’s enjoying staying quiet for a period of time to make it (bless you Creative Galaxy).

We can all do art together. I awoke one Saturday morning to find DH and Pineapple making paper mache in the kitchen. They were covering a balloon in strips of soggy, pink paper. I asked DH what prompted this and he gave me a look that indicated “are you freaking kidding with that question? clearly it was Creative Galaxy” and he said “it looked easy and Arty said it was basically flour, water, paper, and food coloring so I told Pineapple we could try it.” Cute, huh?

When we go to restaurants, we bring art books and markers now and ALL of us participate while we wait for the food. While we do that, we talk about the day and how we could draw what happened or how we felt. That’s quality family time right there, folks.

So what to do now? Paint is going way up high in a cabinet and can only be used when permission is granted and there will be no more CG before school. I suppose we will go back to watching that moron in the yellow hat as George schools him on life. At least that show only resulted in her standing on the trash can, putting a banana in the microwave, and complaining that it was broken.

Oh – and if you’d like a suggestion for another really cute and fun Amazon program, check out Tumble Leaf…I actually enjoy this one. 🙂

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was released on DVD yesterday and in my personal opinion, if you have kids and you haven’t seen it yet, you’re missing out.

Granted, Pineapple is still a bit ‘wee’ for movies – she does not sit through them – but we often have a cartoon movie playing in the background early on Saturday and Sunday mornings while she plays in the living room. It provides a little background noise and she will sometimes pause whatever activity she is involved in to glance at the TV – making it impossible for us to watch more adult fare – like Twilight…WHAT?!

Anyway, Fox recently sent me a copy of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and last Sunday morning when Pineapple and I made our way upstairs, providing DH with a few extra zzz’s, we decided to pop the movie in the DVD player while we played. Following is a synopsis of how the viewing of this movie went:

The trailers started and Pineapple immediately LOST IT over the preview for the upcoming Alvin and the Chipmunks movie – the “Squea-quel.” Too cute, right?! We’ll be watching that one for sure.

Following this theme, as soon as Scrat the squirrel appeared on the TV, she was hooked. I don’t know what it is about little bug-eyed things but she loves them!

This movie consists of Manny’s obsessive “I’m gonna be a daddy” issues and Diego’s “finding himself/mid-life crisis” with a little “Sid needs to stop adopting random kids” sauce for extra flavor. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot so this summary of the primary themes will suffice.

Pineapple ate breakfast while the movie was playing and each time the baby dinosaurs, Sid or Scrat appeared, she giggled and pointed and made “oooh-oooh-dat-dat” noises. She was pleased.

I thought the humor was fantastic! There is a scene when the characters are trapped in a gas cloud that is priceless. Also, the graphics are outstanding! There is a scene where Sid is thrown into a pond that is amazing – it looks absolutely real.

As the movie ended (and I surreptitiously dabbed at my eyes with a paper towel so DH – who had joined us by this time – didn’t know what a sap I am – as if…) the credits rolled to “Everybody Walk the Dinosaur” as sung by Queen Latifah. Pineapple danced her little hiney off to the song – so much so that when it stopped playing, we backed it up and played the song again and I have since downloaded it for future play in the car.

I thought this movie was great. It’s being added to our permanent collection and I’m sure Pineapple will enjoy it for years to come.

Now to the good part…want a copy? Fox is providing 5 copies of the movie for me to give to you! All you have to do is leave a comment on my site about your favorite character in the Ice Age movies – or your kids’ favorite. That’s it! I can’t make it any easier! Pineapple will be picking the winners – I’m printing out the comments and literally having her pick them out of a hat.

Ready…set….GO!

UPDATE: Did you know that in celebration of the movie release to Blue Ray and DVD, 20th Century Fox broke the Guiness World Record for tallest ice sculpture?! It was 4 stories high (48’8″ tall)! WOW! Here is a pic!

But I think Pineapple would have enjoyed this guy skating around more than the sculpture! : ) Go Scrat Go!

OK – comment away – and GOOD LUCK! It’s a great movie!

WINNERS UPDATE: Following a VERY scientific process, during which Pineapple selected from balled up strips of paper, the following winners were chosen to receive a copy of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: Earth_Mommy, ImmeBlue, Peaches, Heather Garland, and Michelle Pendergrass. Please email me with your contact information so I can get those DVD’s shipped out to you! And CONGRATS!!!